Platform Navigation
A scalable navigation that helped users find what they needed quickly in a diverse and growing set of resources.
2025
Year
1 month
Duration
T-Mobile
Company
Component Design
Category
Problem
T-Mobile was consolidating three core internal platforms and several tools into a single employee experience, serving retail, care, and corporate employees with different content needs and devices.
With delivery behind schedule and prior navigation work not meeting leadership expectations, I was brought in to design and deliver a new system, with a two week turn-around.
My Role & Context
I was brought in by leadership to own navigation design end-to-end: interaction behavior, cross-device patterns, and stakeholder alignment.
I partnered with product and engineering to design and deliver within the two-week window, and later led an additional sprint to address brand and logo placement feedback from the VP of Brand.
Solution
The platform's primary navigation was designed to minimize clicks to content, expanding categories in place rather than requiring users to navigate through landing pages to reach subcategories.
The system introduced three levels of hierarchy reducing dependency on landing pages and improving discoverability across devices. Dynamic mirroring of the site backend allowed content teams to manage structure without developer involvement.
Initial Proposal
A side navigation offered better visibility and scannability for a large and diverse content set, and worked better across devices. Frontline employees primarily use tablets as their main device, and mobile format was a core requirement that prior platforms did not support.
The initial proposal separated corporate and frontline content, using hover behavior to quickly reveal L1 and L2 categories. User archetypes surfaced the most relevant topics and deprioritized secondary content, with in-site navigation expected to support additional wayfinding.
Goals
Protect frontline workers using devices in customer-facing environments
Surface the most relevant content by employee type
Reduce content overload with directed topics
Feedback
Navigation depth stopping at L2 created too much reliance on in-page wayfinding
Separating corporate and frontline content felt exclusive and didn't reflect overlap in shared content like news and career development
Interaction design and hover behavior were positively received
Early proposal showing corporate and frontline content separated, with L1 and L2 hierarchy revealed on hover.
MVP Delivery
In response to feedback, content was reorganized by topic, with archetypes still influencing the order. An expandable dropdown within the side nav brought L3 categories into view.
Navigation items are classified as L1, L2, and L3, dynamically loaded from the site backend:
L1 - First level categories always present on side navigation
L2 - Subcategories revealed on click of an L1 item
L3 - Pages and topics revealed in a flyout panel on hover of an L2 item
Each device adapted the behavior while preserving the same mental model. On desktop the nav pushes page content. On tablet it overlays. On mobile it collapses into a focused pattern with each level opening a new view.
Final MVP navigation with L3 categories revealed in a flyout panel on hover of an L2 item.
Brand Review
During a director+ review, the VP of Brand raised concerns about logo visibility and nav behavior. The site logo had been delivered after nav development was complete, prompting a late inspection.
Working with a Sr. UXR, I benchmarked logo and nav behavior across widely used services, mapping findings to four recommendations considering design and development effort. Iterations explored behavior, colors, and interaction states.
The VP selected the highest impact option, prioritizing consistent logo visibility across all nav states. Due to timing, I coordinated a three day turnaround with leadership and the project team, followed by an accessibility review and IT handoff.
Competitive benchmarking of logo placement and nav behavior across widely used services.
Selected recommendation prioritizing consistent logo visibility, mapped against design and development effort.
Outcomes & Tradeoffs
Despite a compressed timeline and late-stage changes, the navigation was delivered on time for MVP platform launch. In-site navigation and search supported wayfinding for deeper content, with the system designed to scale alongside the platform.
Reduced click depth for core content
Removed developer dependency for nav updates post-launch
Established a scalable pattern adopted across the platform